Tag Archives: Muslims in Britain

Summary

The final part of the conference was a summary of all the main sessions, presented by Dr Dwight Swanson, Co-director of MCSCI. The main presentation was fairly short, and this 20-minute recording may be a good starter for anyone who was not able to be at the conference.

Gordon Hickson

Fittingly, in the closing session Gordon Hickson, director of Mahabba in the UK, spoke to the centrality of prayer as the Christian response to Islam. Hickson described the origins of Mahabba, which is ‘love’ in Arabic, in prayer. This prayer is not simply that Muslims become believers, but it is prayer for a tenderness of heart towards Muslims, and prayer for the Church to live out the witness to Christ.

Phil Lewis

Phil Lewis is a sociologist of religion, recently retired from the University of Bradford, and perhaps the foremost Christian scholar on Muslims in the UK. His analysis was specific to the UK, but exemplified an approach to understanding the particulars of Muslims in any part of the West. Wherever we are it is important to understand what ‘kind’ of Muslims live among us, and what the specific issues are that they face in our societies: cultural and historical, and not simply religious.

Lewis identified the socio-economic situation of Muslims in Britain, focussing on the increasingly significant role of Muslim women’s groups in trying to find ways for Muslims to navigate the changes in society at large. He recommends that Christians support the initiatives such people are taking with regard to issues such as poverty, unemployment, prisons, and single families—as well as radicalisation of youth.